1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to sewing apparatus, and more particularly, apparatus for delivering, folding, and stitching belt loops to a garment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, it was common for belt loops to be sewn directly to the outside of work clothes, such as jeans. The individual loops were taken by a sewing machine operator, folded at opposite longitudinal ends, and stitched on their outside to the jeans. The manual handling of the individual loops and positioning of the same on the jeans is a time-consuming, production reducing process.
The apparatus of the present invention delivers the belt loops, folds them at their opposite longitudinal ends, and stitches them to the outside of the garment at the opposite longitudinally folded ends, all automatically, thereby reducing valuable production time and operator tedium associated with sewing belt loops to a garment.
In my prior patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,034,690 issued July 12, 1977 entitled "Apparatus and Method for Forming Belt Loops", I disclose an apparatus and method for making belt loops from discrete, pre-sized plies of fabric material. The loops are collated in a bundle or spool so that they can be removed and sewn to garment pieces cut from adjacent areas on a fabric lay to maintain the same shading characteristics of the component pieces of the garment throughout its construction. The apparatus and method for collating and bundling the belt loops is disclosed in my prior patents, U.S. Pat. No. 4,149,709 issued Apr. 17, 1979 entitled "Apparatus and Method for Collating and Bundling Belt Loops" and U.S. Pat. No. 4,135,707 issued Jan. 23, 1979, also entitled "Apparatus and Method for Collating and Bundling Belt Loops".
The present apparatus is specifically adapted to remove the individual belt loops from the collated spool bundle, deliver them to a folder which folds their opposite ends, and then sews them to the exterior of a garment. While the apparatus is specifically adapted to operate with such a spool bundle, it will be obvious from the following disclosure that the apparatus can be used to deliver, fold and stitch any discrete one or more belt loops to a garment such as a pair of jeans, regardless of their source and the manner in which they are formed.